Two onside kick recoveries and a gobbled-up fumble led to a 16-0 lead.
Baldwin, however, couldn’t have asked for a better finish.
Thirty-one unanswered points pushed the Panthers to a 31-22 victory, as the second-half surge secured a second straight West Michigan D League title. Baldwin (4-2, 3-0 WMD) hasn’t lost a league game in the last two seasons.
“This was a great way to win a championship,” said Baldwin coach Doug Bolles. “For my kids to come here, where we haven’t won in 15 years, and get down 16-0, and then battle back … this is one of the best wins I’ve been associated with.
“The kids are buying in to what we’re doing,” he added of the recent stronghold on the league title. “It’s an awesome feeling — we’re happy with where we’re at — but we don’t want to settle on it.
“We haven’t won a playoff game in school history, so we know we’ve got a long ways to go.”
Junior quarterback Brandon Childress led the way with a pair of rushing touchdowns and a field goal with 87 yards on the ground and 63 in the air on six completions. He was certainly the focal point of Onekama’s gameplan on the defensive end.
“I’m very proud of my team,” Hunter said. “Childress is the real deal, and for the most part we kept him check pretty well.
“We benefitted from some dropped balls, but we didn’t give up the big plays over top, which has been something they’re able to do,” he added. “But we couldn’t get the stops when we needed them, and they kind of just wore us down.”
Onekama opened strong with its first of two straight onside kick recoveries, and four plays later, Jon Acton ran in a 16-yard touchdown at 10:06. Jordan Coe’s 2-point punch-in gave the Portagers an 8-0 lead.
Acton led the team in rushing with 105 yards, while Coe finished with 74.
On the ensuing kick, the home team again recovered the ball, but the offense stalled out after six plays. Baldwin’s offense finally got on the field with around the 7-minute mark, but its first play from scrimmage was a botched handoff that Onekama jumped on.
Acton wasted little time scoring again, on a 28-yard rushing touchdown as well as the 2-point conversion, for a 16-0 lead with 6:33 remaining.
The Panthers responded as Childress orchestrated a 12-play drive that he capped off with a 4-yard keeper for a score. Dackwon Fisher ran in the 2-point conversion to cut the gap to 16-8 with 4:06 left in the first.
The second quarter nearly went scoreless as the teams kept trading possessions, but with 1:10 before the break, Fisher returned an Onekama punt nearly 70 yards to paydirt. The special teams score cut Onekama’s lead to 16-14 as the team’s entered halftime.
